


The Earth Still Burns

by seamayweed (night_shade)



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Agender Character, Alternate Canon, Enemies to Lovers, Ensemble Cast, F/F, Fix-It, Identity Issues, Intersex, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Other, Past Rape/Non-con, Power Dynamics, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sane Sephiroth (Compilation of FFVII), Unintentional Redemption, but that doesn't mean he came back whole, or that he isn't still a nightmare, rewrite of the remake
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:08:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24926692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/night_shade/pseuds/seamayweed
Summary: When Cloud finds Sephiroth alive but unconscious in a dark and grimy alleyway in Wall Market, appearing to be free of Jenova’s influence, he has to ask himself if the creature that crawled out of the crater and ashes of her impact could still be called a man, or if all that’s left is just a monster.Or: Sephiroth teams up with Avalanche to take down Shinra. Cloud becomes his keeper, for better or for worse.
Relationships: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Comments: 61
Kudos: 199





	1. Prologue: The Last Supper

_Mother, I love you_ , he said, the way she had told him so many times.

And for a moment he savored it: her soothing comfort, her warmth and her love, her overwhelming and sometimes terrifying adoration—even if it was only artificial and false, a mere simulacrum of something she would never be able to understand.

For a moment he let himself indulge and lean into her warm presence, like a mother rocking a child back to sleep after a nightmare. If he closed his eyes, turned his face away, he could almost pretend it was real.

But he could not avert his gaze from the truth any longer; the lifestream had revealed it to him, and he realized now that this had been the dream all along. And the nightmare was her.

He remembered the way she called him _son_ like a choke chain, like an umbilical cord wrapped too tightly around his throat, suffocating him—

_like the sticky, wet heat of a womb, making it hard to breathe, hard to_ scream

—and he 

cut it.

_I love you_ , he repeated; he meant it. _Sleep, Mother. It won’t hurt_ , he reassured her, as she had done so often, even when it had hurt; even when it had always hurt.

Her inhuman screech rang in his ears; he remembered thinking he was hearing the voice of _god_ when it resounded in his head in Nibelheim, the indistinct whispers from his childhood finally ringing with such powerful and terrifying clarity, as though coming from deep within his soul, so pure and divine and _good_ , that he had wanted to cry. _My son, my sweet, sweet son, don’t you love me, what are you_ doing—

But he didn’t stop, the way she also had never stopped even when he begged her to; even when his mind misted over and he eventually forgot why he was asking her to stop in the first place.

He took her in, swallowed her, gorged it all down—until he felt full with it; until he felt her heavy and warm in his own belly, making him shiver from head to toe with pleasure.

It almost felt as good as the first time she had pried him open, tearing through the tender hymen of his mind—

_Symbiosis_ , she had crooned to him. _Belonging_ , as her roots sank deeply into the fertile ground of his body, mind, and soul. _Love_ , as she found easy passage through the cracks that were already there.

And just as she slipped into him, he slipped out of her. It was thick, viscous, as though he was sliding through the slickness of blood. It was darkness and claustrophobic pressure, a strong, rhythmic pulse in his ears and squeezing all around his body, and then there was—

_Light_.

Bright, blinding.

It was like a second birth, and for several moments he felt as helpless and weak as a newborn; as blind and naked as a chick that had fallen out of its nest.

There were shards of crystallized mako all around him, scattered on the dark wing that had been Mother’s gift and now lay limply stretched out underneath him. The sudden freezing cold was a shock to the system after having been ensconced in her warm, wet, _sickening_ heat for so long, cocooning him in the most intimate of ways.

He was alone again for the first time in five years, and for a moment he felt disorientated, desolate, like a lost child.

His breath hitched, but it felt foreign. His throat felt tight with an emotion that wasn’t there, that had been lost in the great flood of her coming; washed away with everything else that she had deemed unworthy of a god and her son. Weakness had no place in the new world she had wanted to create.

He felt so empty, so hollow that it _ached_ , that it left him gasping and trembling, shaking with a profound cold that radiated from deep within and was far beyond anything the North Crater, with its snow or ice or biting winds, could ever hope to emulate.

It made him wonder if he could ever feel warm again.

Here the lifestream pulsed close to the surface; the wound that Mother had left. Its warmth appealed to him, attracting him like a moth to the flame, the voices of the dead crooning to him from the other side, just like Mother had. He could still remember falling into it, and how it felt like being torn into a million pieces as he tried to scream with vocal cords that were no longer there.

It was the only warm thing in this barren wasteland, but it had scorned him; hadn’t wanted him—and so he didn’t want it either. 

But he wasn’t alone despite it all. Not completely.

Even if everything in his world was cold now, there was still one person who could make him burn.

He had to go to Midgar, find the one in whose memories and thoughts he yet resided. Only then would he have what he was looking for, what he had been craving all along and Mother had promised but never given him even after all this time, and his whole being shivered and writhed with anticipation at the thought of it, at the thought of—

_Reunion_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At first I was rather meh about the new version of Sephiroth, but then I thought about how I could make him work for me—and voila! This fic was born. As a word of warning, I’m keeping the parts I like about the Remake and wildly cannibalizing and remixing everything else, so there will be no time-traveling or Whispers either, in case you were here for that.


	2. Fallen Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud finds an angel… or is it the other way around?

After being ushered out of the massage parlor by Madam M so she could dress Aerith up and give her a full makeover, which he apparently wasn’t supposed to be present for, Cloud wasn’t quite sure what to do while he was forced to wait. He felt impatient, restless, filled with the pressing need to storm Don Corneo’s mansion and rescue Tifa.

He couldn’t quite remember the reasons why he wasn’t there and doing _exactly_ that. He could probably pull it off, too. After all, he wasn’t an ex-SOLDIER First Class for _nothing_.

He was still aimlessly wandering the garish and loud streets of Wall Market, contemplating whether to just fuck it and go in guns blazing, when his enhanced ears picked up on the stampede of feet moments before people came crashing into the street. They looked scared, like they were trying to get away from something. Cloud was immediately on high alert, hand on the hilt of his sword as he carefully scanned the surroundings.

Snatches of conversations drifted over to him as some of the people were stopped and asked what was going on by the disquieted shoppers and stall keepers—

“It was a bloodbath, I tell you—”

“—killed everyone at Don Corneo’s mansion—”

A sharp gasp. “Do you think the Don is dead?”

“Oh Shiva, he’s going to come after us next. He’ll kill all of us—”

Among the growing amalgamation of fearful whispers and speculations Cloud picked out three voices clearly:

“I heard it was an angel that did it,” someone said, quiet and yet with a tinge of breathless awe in their voice.

This was met with a snort. “More like a _demon_ by the sounds of it.”

“Or an _avenging_ angel!” yet another person chimed in. “The Don had it coming, I tell ya—”

It was then that a bright, sharp pain pierced through Cloud with such force that it made his ears ring. He stumbled, clutching his head. It felt like his skull was splitting apart.

He didn’t pay attention to the crowd around him anymore, pushing past bodies, the rush of voices that told him to watch where he was going, the nauseatingly bright colors, feeling almost blind as he tried to find a quiet spot where he could just stop and _breathe_. The world seemed to be spinning madly around him, and that _damn_ high-pitched ringing in his ears just wouldn’t go away. If he listened closely, it almost sounded like a voice, calling to him.

He didn’t look where he was going, but somehow he found himself at the mouth of an alley a few disorienting minutes later. He was still pressing his palm to his brow, other hand searching for a wall to steady himself, when he saw _him_.

Turned out the alley wasn’t as empty as he had thought. It was dark, but no true darkness could ever reign in Wall Market, the pleasure and entertainment district of the slums, the city that never slept.

The man who lay unconscious on the ground looked so out of place in the muck and the filth of the dirty alleyway. He was completely naked, pale and ethereal against the dark grime around him. Neon lights caught on his skin, on the strands of his long, silver hair and his translucent lashes. Cloud could understand why those people called him an angel; he looked like one that had just fallen from the sky, and was now slumbering serenely on mortal ground.

In the semi-dark, he looked almost innocent, pure.

But this was no angel. This was _Sephiroth_ , and somehow there wasn’t even a single speck of blood on him even though he had gone on a killing spree in Don Corneo’s mansion.

Snapping out of the trance he had fallen into, Cloud drew his sword and pointed it at Sephiroth’s soft, vulnerable neck.

He could imagine how it happened: Sephiroth walking down ostentatious hallways that were surely just as garish as the rest of Wall Market, the hilt of his famous Masamune held in his left hand, gleaming silver edge dripping with blood—just like it had in Nibelheim.

Cloud could still see it burning whenever he closed his eyes. 

He didn’t know how it was possible. Sephiroth was supposed to be _dead_ —and yet he had returned, in the flesh. Somehow Cloud knew this was not like the other hallucinations; this was real, impossibly, _frighteningly_ real. He also knew that he should end Sephiroth while he still had the chance, before the man woke up and could do even more damage. There was no doubt that he was the one responsible for the attack on the Don’s mansion. They said that he had killed everyone there. Maybe he had even killed Tifa.

Cloud should press his blade down, slash that long, slender throat open until blood poured out and painted that pale, unblemished expanse of skin a vivid shade of red. 

It would be quick, easy; requiring nothing more than the slight shift of his hand.

He looked down at the face of the man who had burned down Nibelheim, orphaning both Cloud and Tifa in a single breath; causing Cloud to be experimented on by a mad scientist for four years. His grip tightened on the hilt and the blade began to slowly sink down...

But in the end he couldn’t do it.

It seemed wrong, somehow. The large Buster Sword nearly covered Sephiroth’s whole body where it was raised above it, and there was just something about the contrast of the dark steel against his paleness that made the weapon seem crude and blunt all of a sudden, as unfitting as the rest of the filthy alleyway.

Besides, it wasn’t right to kill an unconscious man who couldn’t even defend himself. And maybe... maybe there was still also some lingering respect, some childish adoration that should not have survived the burning of Nibelheim halting his hand.

So Cloud put the sword back into its holster on his back and knelt down by Sephiroth’s side to pick him up. Somehow none of the dirt clung to him, not even to his hair which had been lying at the edge of a muddy puddle, and he remained perfectly pristine; perhaps gods just didn’t get dirty, no matter how much blood or filth they bathed in.

As Cloud placed his arms under Sephiroth’s shoulders and knees, he was surprised to note that while the man was heavy, he was lighter than he’d thought. He also didn’t seem to be quite as tall as in Cloud’s imagination, as his fear-tinged dreams and hallucinations made him out to be. The pauldrons, the leather, the heavy boots—they all contributed to making him look bigger. He was still muscular, taller than Cloud by at least a head… but he was also lithe, built to be slender rather than bulky.

His body was warm under Cloud’s gloved hands, his skin smooth and soft against Cloud’s bare arms. He felt surprisingly… human.

At the brush of cool, silken hair on his skin, Cloud carefully gathered the thick, heavy mass on top of Sephiroth’s body to ensure it wouldn’t accidentally get snagged somewhere while they walked and also to provide some slight modesty to the bare man.

For a moment he just stood there, Sephiroth warm and soft in his arms, and considered his options.

He couldn’t go back to Madam M and Aerith, nor to the Honeybee Inn where Aerith had told him Andrea Rhodea was apparently eager to meet him. It was too dangerous, and the whole situation had changed with the massacre in the Don’s mansion. Right now Sephiroth was his highest priority; everything else could wait.

Luckily, the masses were too panicked to spare them a glance as they passed by despite the fact that Cloud was carrying a naked man in his arms. As he walked, he tried not to notice how delicate silver strands of hair whispered over his skin with every step, how heat wafted off the body cradled to his chest, or how near Sephiroth’s sleeping face was to his own. This close, he could even pick up on his scent, warm and clean and appealing to him in a way he would not name. He thought of Tifa, how he knew nothing of her fate yet, and sobered at once.

He stopped at the first hotel he could find. The sign looked terribly gaudy, glowing a bright neon pink that made him wish his eyes hadn’t been enhanced with mako, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

The woman behind the counter appeared to be filing her long nails which were the same bright shade of pink as the sign outside. When she noticed them approaching, her eyes immediately zeroed in on the weight in his arms. The look in them seemed entirely too interested for Cloud’s liking, and his shoulders instinctively curled around the man he was carrying while he tightened his grip, effectively tilting Sephiroth’s body and face towards him and away from the receptionist.

She only blinked at him before smiling, slow and knowing. He only huffed and requested a room for two; he didn’t care what she thought of him, what she thought of both of them. After paying the exorbitant sum of two-hundred gil for the night—which the receptionist claimed was due to their strict rule of confidentiality and high-quality soundproof walls—he made a beeline for the stairs, forgoing the elevators. In case Sephiroth suddenly woke up, he didn’t want to be trapped in a cramped space with him, or possibly get other people caught in the crossfire.

Once he reached the third floor, he started down the hall. Unfortunately, soundproof walls didn’t mean much to augmented SOLDIER senses, and he heard all the moans and screams, the creaking of beds, the slap of flesh on flesh, even what sounded like the crack of a whip…

Cloud only focused on counting his own steps, the weight of his boots on the floor. He didn’t look down at the long line of a pale neck, or at lashes that fluttered gently in sleep. He didn’t notice how hot breath gently seeped through his shirt as if it wasn’t even there.

When he found their room, he inserted the key into the lock before entering, careful to go in sideways so no part of the limp body in his arms hit or even brushed the doorframe. The room wasn’t anything fancy. It had a basic closet, night table, and bathroom. Only the bed was a little on the bigger side, but he supposed that was to be expected. The colors were surprisingly muted, almost tasteful, considering the sign outside.

He gently laid Sephiroth down on the bed on top of the sheets where his silver hair pooled around him. In better lighting—though still somewhat dim, it was _that_ kind of hotel after all—he was even more beautiful.

It was then that Cloud realized with a sinking feeling that he hadn’t really thought this through. His plan had been to buy some clothes for Sephiroth after bringing him to a hotel room, but Cloud couldn’t actually leave because then _who_ would stand guard?

He sighed at his own short-sightedness and ran a hand through his hair in irritation. Tifa would probably tease him for it— _Tifa_.

Thinking of her was like taking a punch to the gut, so he didn’t. He wouldn’t consider that possibility, not until he had firm proof of it.

Until then there was nothing to do but wait.

He eventually settled for the compromise of covering Sephiroth with a blanket. Then he sat down in the chair by the bedside, his sword resting against a nearby wall for easy access. He had almost left it behind back in his apartment in the slums of Sector Seven because it somehow felt precious, like he shouldn’t use it too often, even though he could not quite remember why. Whenever he tried, his head began to ache and he would only get impressions of white feathers, a blinding light. He’d had no choice but to wield the sword in the beginning because it had been the only one he had. Now things were different, he had other swords in his possession now, and though just the thought of holding it felt sacrilegious, it somehow felt worse not to use it at all.

As he sat in his chair, waiting, there was little to look at but the slumbering figure on the bed, effortlessly drawing his eyes back to it again and again no matter how much he tried to resist.

Eventually he gave up and allowed himself to stare at Sephiroth directly, unabashed. 

He thought about the posters he used to have in his bedroom as a boy, but the man had been so much more beautiful in real life.

The first time he had seen him was in Wutai. Sephiroth had saved him from an Ifrit, cutting a striking, heroic figure while Cloud had looked up at him in awe from the ground, a little embarrassed that he had let his childhood idol see him make a rookie mistake and get disarmed in the middle of a fight he thought he had already won. He remembered how that long silver hair had trailed behind the man, reflecting the fire as burning sparks of ember floated in the air. The heat hadn’t seemed to touch him then, just like the flames consuming Nibelheim hadn’t—

But even _then_ , destroying everything Cloud had ever loved, he had been beautiful.

Cloud shook his head. His memories from before being found by Tifa in Sector Seven were still hazy. One of the few things he recalled clearly though was how Sephiroth had worked himself to the bone, spending longer and longer nights not sleeping until he wasn’t sleeping at all, withdrawing into himself and meeting all of Cloud’s attempts to draw him out only with coldness. It made him wonder how it had all turned out like this.

Somehow he had a feeling he was missing something important, though he didn’t quite know what.

But there was no use in speculating the what-ifs and what-could-have-beens. When Sephiroth woke up, Cloud would find out how he returned and then get rid of him once and for all so it never happened again. And that was that.

He spent the next minutes staring at the ground between his feet, elbows on his knees, gloved hands loosely clasped between them. His breathing was calm. He was steady, focused, senses extended to pick up on even the smallest change in the pattern of Sephiroth’s heartbeat.

At a faint whisper he looked up—only to see that a strand of hair had fallen into Sephiroth’s face. The man was still asleep, eyes closed, pale lashes casting long shadows on his cheeks, full lips slightly parted. He truly did look like an angel.

And Cloud couldn’t help himself; he got to his feet and approached the bed. It was almost as though he was compelled. His hand reached out to brush the hair out of Sephiroth’s face. He thought of how the man had always seemed so cold and untouchable, seeming as though he had been carved out of marble itself. 

But he didn’t feel like he was made of cold, unyielding stone. He was as warm and soft as any other human. It would be so much easier, if he wasn’t.

When Cloud finally mustered up the discipline to draw back, a long-fingered hand caught his wrist, the grip like steel. Fear caught in his throat as verdant, cat-slitted eyes settled on him.

While he stood there frozen, Sephiroth’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment as he leaned his cheek into the palm of Cloud’s captured hand. Then he smiled—slow and wide and _menacing_.

“Cloud,” he said, tongue curling around his name in a warm, intimate caress; in his low, deep timbre that haunted Cloud’s dreams. “Finally, we are reunited.”


	3. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sephiroth and Cloud have an important conversation.

Even despite the terror gripping his heart, Cloud’s fingers twitched against the cheek underneath his hand. He sensed warmth, the soft give of flesh, and for a moment he wondered what it would feel like without the leather of his glove muting the sensations. 

Then he shook himself out of it with a start, chiding himself for his momentary distraction. His unhealthy obsession with this man was what had led to this situation in the first place, and he couldn’t believe how he could have been so careless as to let his guard down for even one second.

Had he been so blinded by how angelic the other man looked in his sleep? Had he already forgotten _who_ this man was and what he was capable of?

Stupid, stupid. He was so, _so_ stupid. His sword was back at the wall, too far out of reach and now he was going to _die_ —

Cloud didn’t think; anger and fear ate away at his vision until it was reduced to a narrow needle point, and he ripped his arm away with all the force of a wild, cornered animal. Sephiroth offered little resistance, easily releasing his grip, and Cloud put as much distance between them as he could in the small room they were in.

Sephiroth merely watched him with the easy calm of a predator watching prey, and didn’t stop Cloud when he reached for his sword, quick but careful, eyes never once leaving Sephiroth’s form.

Sephiroth _did_ move then, making Cloud tense up with a spike of adrenaline—but only to sit up on the bed, blanket pooling in his lap, which he casually pushed away. Cloud thought he would get up then, but he didn’t. He just sat there, apparently completely uncaring of his own nudity as he continued to stare at Cloud with that same calm focus.

Cloud only let himself relax a little when his fingers curled around the hilt of his sword. It was only a moment though, and in a lightning-quick motion he lifted the large blade so the sharp edge was just resting under Sephiroth’s chin.

Sephiroth’s bangs billowed a little away from his face before gently settling back in place. The thin, soft hairs at the edges seemed almost translucent in the light.

Sephiroth, for his part, seemed relaxed, perfectly at ease; even a little amused at Cloud’s antics. His striking green eyes were not made any less piercing by the long, feathery lashes that framed them, and they peered at him curiously over the broad edge of the blade now in an almost reptilian way.

He made absolutely no motion to defend himself, and Cloud wondered if he should feel insulted, or just glad that he didn’t.

As much as the wordless mockery made Cloud grind his teeth, Sephiroth’s current complacency only increased his wariness, making him wonder if this was just a trick to lull him into a false sense of safety. He recalled the way the other man could easily pull his Masamune out of thin air at any moment; the way he could move in the blink of an eye and spear Cloud on its endless length like a pig. But this time, Cloud wouldn’t let his guard down; this time, he wouldn’t make a mistake.

He started with one of the most pressing questions: “Did you kill everyone at the mansion?”

Sephiroth laughed softly. “I didn’t kill _everyone_. Just those who attacked me. They didn’t seem to like the fact that I tried to kill their boss.” 

After a moment of hard staring to verify the truth of this statement, Cloud nodded tightly. He had considered the possibility of those people exaggerating, extrapolating; they usually did. A fraction of the tension left his shoulders, though he immediately scolded himself for it; Sephiroth may not have killed everyone, but that didn’t have to mean _anything_.

“Why did you try to kill Don Corneo?” he asked next, eyes as steely and unforgiving as the blade he held to Sephiroth’s throat.

“Apparently his goons found me unconscious on the outskirts of the wall and brought me to him, claiming I was an angel. He... tried to touch me.” Sephiroth cocked his head, hair falling into his softly, _dangerously_ glittering eyes, as though the mere notion amused him. Dark humor stained his voice as he said, “I showed him exactly what _kind_ of angel I was. I may have played around a little too much though, as he managed to escape.”

Cloud could very well imagine what kind of _playing around_ had happened with the Don, and had to suppress his shudder; sweat slicked his nape, dampened his palms underneath the protective leather that covered them. 

He tried not to let any of this show and tightened his grip on the hilt. He knew he couldn’t skirt around this question anymore no matter how much he wanted to; no matter how much he feared hearing the answer.

“Did you kill Tifa?”

He knew if Sephiroth answered yes, he would decapitate him in one brutal swing. It didn’t matter how beautiful he was, or how much he haunted Cloud’s dreams and most of his waking hours, filling them with mindless, paralyzing fear; or even the fact that they had been something like friends, once.

Tifa was worth so much more than that, and Cloud owed her far, far too much.

“The little guide at Nibelheim who also happens to be your childhood friend?” Sephiroth’s lips pulled into a small smile as he drew out the moment, seeming to derive much enjoyment out of doing so. Just before Cloud could snarl at him to get on with it, he relented gracefully and said—“No, I didn’t kill her. I didn’t even _see_ her. A shame, really.”

Cloud stared at him for a long, hard moment. He wasn’t sure if he believed it, but as there was no other possible answer he could live with, he had no other choice but to do exactly that.

“If you are lying, I will kill you,” he promised. “I will kill you as many times as needed; as many times as you return. The only reason you still have your head on your shoulders is because I haven’t figured out yet how you are still alive, and what I need to do to make sure you stay dead the next time I kill you. So talk.”

And Sephiroth told him, with that low, lilting voice of his that was so well-suited to narration; capable of making even mad things sound almost rational and sensible. He told him the unlikely story of how he had fallen into the lifestream when Cloud pushed him down the walkway at the Nibel reactor, and how he had rebuilt his body later in the North Crater. He also told him of how he had broken out of the crystallized mako he had been frozen in, and his subsequent journey to Midgar.

“You… flew here. With your wing,” Cloud repeated, to make sure he had heard that right. Somehow it was this detail that stuck out the most to him in that whole ridiculous story.

“I can show you, if you’d like to see,” Sephiroth offered, something dark and almost eager lurking underneath the soft monotone of his voice.

Without waiting for Cloud’s answer, he proceeded to do so. Cloud wasn’t entirely sure about the mechanics of how it worked, but the way the construct of feathers and bones burst out of Sephiroth’s back was almost violent, sending a small gust of wind through the room that ruffled Cloud’s hair—as terrifying as it was beautiful.

The black wing was majestic, huge; spanning almost the entire width of the room. As the air settled and the loose feathers gently fluttered down around the pale and lithe form on the bed, Sephiroth looked nothing short of a dark, fallen angel.

And Cloud was… he was slightly _awed_ even despite the fear that coursed through his veins and left him shaking. When people had said it was an angel that had been responsible for the massacre, he hadn’t thought they had meant it _literally_.

The glossy feathers gleamed almost iridescent from certain angles, making Cloud wonder how they would feel under his bare fingers; if they would be as soft and silken as Sephiroth’s hair.

… _Surreal_ , was what it was. Here was the man who had given him so much grief, a very _dangerous_ man who might take everything he loved and had been trying to rebuild a second time, and all Cloud could think of was touching his wing in silent reverence. He didn’t know when he lowered his blade either—it must have been when he had been startled by the sudden wind, arm coming up to shield his face from what he instinctively assumed to be an attack; when awe and fear struck him in equal measure, limbs growing slack with numbness at once.

Cloud shook himself and raised the sword again so it was in its previous spot, continuing his line of interrogation.

“So your wing was... outside your body when Corneo’s men found you?” That certainly explained why Sephiroth had been brought to the Don.

Sephiroth glanced down briefly at the blade at his throat, before looking up again. He didn’t comment on it. “Seems like it. I must have fallen during my flight and when I woke up in Don Corneo’s bedroom, it was still there.”

Cloud didn’t ask further; he knew what happened then. While he was still digesting the words, Sephiroth spoke up again.

“Though…” There was the soft slide of hair as Sephiroth affixed Cloud with his unusual, unsettling eyes. “I must confess that I’m a little surprised. Didn’t you know about my coming, Cloud?”

Cloud’s eyebrows drew together. “What?”

“I sent you messages—though _visions_ may be more accurate. I know you received them. After all, we are connected in a way wholly unique to the both of us.”

“You were trying to… communicate with me.” Cloud thought of all the frightening, painful hallucinations he’d been having, along with Sephiroth’s cryptic, if not completely nonsensical, words inside them. Just earlier was another example, when he had been stumbling down the colorful and loud streets feeling at once as though he’d been hit by lightning, and someone was slowly, agonizingly pulling his skull apart.

“Yes,” Sephiroth intoned, with gravitas. “I wanted to prepare you.”

“But for... what?” Cloud asked, almost dreading the answer.

Sephiroth raised his hands open-palmed in a gesture that spoke of grandeur.

His sensual lips parted. “For our _Reunion_ , of course—” Cloud’s mind flashed with the memory of those black-robed people standing in that cold and desolate place, mumbling the same word over and over again as though possessed—“after my battle with Mother. Though you may also know her as the Calamity, or... Jenova.”

The ache in Cloud’s skull worsened at the mention of her name, the image of a metal plate engraved with letters flickering hazily in and out of his vision, accompanied by static. He gritted his teeth against it, and soldiered on. “I assume you… defeated her?”

“I ate her,” Sephiroth said, quietly, softly; with such loving _tenderness_ that it made a chill run down Cloud’s spine.

“You _what_?”

Sephiroth merely seemed amused by Cloud’s shock, and gave a slow, elegant shrug. “She didn’t like my obsession with you and told me that you were just a puppet, to be used as I liked, and nothing more than that. I disagreed.”

Cloud swallowed tightly. “So… you killed her because she wouldn’t let you play with your favorite toy?”

Sephiroth’s arm was a graceful arc in Cloud’s direction, from his rolling wrist to his fingertips, open-palmed, almost as if in silent entreaty.

“Don’t put yourself down like that, Cloud. I have long regarded you as my only equal, and you should do the same.” Then his eyes seemed to grow colder, even as he smiled. “She called my attachment to you human weakness, something a god should never have. She also lied to me.” His lip lifted slightly, showing a hint of teeth. “She lied to me about many things.”

And Cloud… didn’t know what to say to that. Sephiroth didn’t seem to mind, tilting his head.

“Did you know that the Masamune was also called the god-killing sword in Wutai? I consumed Mother, took her into my own flesh, and became _god_ in her stead.”

“You are still crazy,” Cloud said, though he was not quite able to keep the unsettled, fearful tremor out of his voice.

Sephiroth just looked at him, making him feel like an insect under a microscope; a specimen in a mako tank. “You shouldn’t forget that also makes _you_ a god-slayer, Cloud,” he purred. “After all, you killed me in that reactor. Who better to call my equal?”

Cloud snorted. It was an angry, ugly sound. “Yeah, right. Stay out of my head and I might even believe it the next time. I know you are just saying that to manipulate me. You don’t consider _anyone_ your equal. A puppet, maybe. It must be fun for you to jerk my strings and watch me dance.”

“ _No_ ,” Sephiroth said at once. “I would never use you like that. You are not my puppet.” He looked at Cloud then with eyes that were more like ravines; it felt like falling into an abyss. “You are my… _prophet_.”

That single word was laced with dark adoration and fervency, making something inside Cloud feel small and tremble. His stomach dropped, as though he was truly falling. It mingled with the sense-memory of raw knees, and pain— _so_ much pain. Wind rushed past his ears, lashing his skin, drowning out his voice as he shouted. He was reaching out to someone, and they were reaching back for him—

But it was like echoes in a cave, bouncing off the damp walls to fade into shadows and silence. 

The ground of the hotel room materialized again underneath Cloud’s feet and his mouth tightened, corners twisting and pulling down in a bare twitch of poorly concealed upset. “Same difference.”

“It’s not,” Sephiroth said, voice still brimming with that same dark ardor; with that same quiet, pulsing madness. “You may have pulled me from my divine heights and thrown me into the burning depths of the lifestream below, and I could have declared you a heretic, my true enemy, but I did not. I _chose_ you as my prophet, and I would have you have the same choice.”

“Well, I’m not your prophet,” Cloud muttered, disinterested.

Sephiroth inclined his head, and looked at him with such _terrible_ knowing in his eyes. “But don’t you want me to be your god?”

It was asked simply, and yet it punched all the breath out of Cloud’s lungs all the same—as though he’d been impaled by the Masamune again, hanging helplessly in the air as he slowly, excruciating slid down the long blade, hands slick with his own blood and only growing slicker as he tried to find some traction on the cold steel, the sharp metal edge biting into his fingers as he desperately tried to hold on to it.

_Desire_ , powerful and unstoppable, surged through him with the force of a tidal wave, carving him open as surely as the Masamune once had.

It throbbed and pulsed in time with the scar in the center of his chest which he felt acutely through the material of his shirt. The blade had parted flesh and bone, each rib, like it was nothing. A few inches to the left and Sephiroth would have hit Cloud’s heart and put him to a quick end; he should have. It would have been easier than anything that came after.

_Want_ was such a strange, burdensome thing. Wanting had never done him any good; wanting to leave Nibelheim and join SOLDIER, wanting to follow in his idol’s footsteps and become a hero like him. And look how that had turned out.

But no longer could he hide from the undeniable, shameful truth: somehow—impossibly, and against all reason—it had survived even the burning of Nibelheim, the death of Cloud’s mother, the death of Tifa’s father, the deaths of all the other villagers; the scar across Tifa’s chest, and the one branded into Cloud’s own. It had persevered, even when none of those other things had.

He had forgotten what it was like to want like this; had thought himself to be no longer capable of it.

But he now knew that it had only been a lie, wishful thinking on his part. And the visceral truth was this:

He wanted this man. He wanted Sephiroth like he had never wanted anyone else.

He burned with it, _ached_ with it, with every cell and fiber of his being. With every breath of his lungs.

Sephiroth watched him calmly, patiently, the void of his eyes enticing him to let go and fall as he cycled through all these emotions, waiting for him to come to a final decision.

Cloud took a deep, shuddering breath, tears prickling behind his eyes which he forced back with all his strength, and said, harshly—“You are not my god. You are not _anyone’s_ god.”

Heavy, tense silence followed his pronouncement. When he finally dared to raise his head and meet the other man’s eyes, the look in them froze Cloud’s insides to ice, colder even than the deepest and harshest of Nibelheim winters.

“ _Don’t lie to me,_ Cloud,” Sephiroth said, like a sudden flash; like thunder. “I can see into you and your deepest, darkest desires, and I know that you want me. Do _not_ deny yourself.”

“I told you to _stay out of my head_ ,” Cloud hissed. Anger and fear warred inside him. His fist tightened around the hilt almost to the point of crushing it, and the blade nicked Sephiroth’s skin in a thin line. Blood started to trickle down his throat, collecting in his collarbone, but he didn’t even seem to _notice_ —so deeply focused was he on Cloud.

“But don’t you want to worship at my feet?” he asked, his calm certainty cutting Cloud to the bone and making him flinch. “Isn’t that what you crave, Cloud?”

Even with the blade biting just a little deeper into his flesh with the way Cloud’s hand shook uncontrollably, more blood pouring down his pale skin in rivulets, he didn’t try to avoid it, sitting there as immobile as a marble statue.

It was then that Cloud noticed how Sephiroth had been too quiet, too still, all this time. Another person may have fidgeted or shifted at least a little, but he remained unmoving in a completely unnatural way. Even when he did move, it seemed deliberate, telegraphed, imbued with some kind of divine splendor that was as constructed as it was artificial.

It was a reminder that he wasn’t really human, no matter how much he felt and looked like one.

A violent shudder went through Cloud. “No,” was all he could say. “ _No_ ,” with all the force of his being.

Sephiroth fell silent at this, though his eyes were a different matter. It took all of Cloud’s power not to look away; it would have been tantamount to surrender.

Into the silence, trembling and quietly furious, he said, “I’m still going to kill you.”

“You can’t,” Sephiroth said, almost a taunt, but not quite. 

Cloud bared his teeth. “I can and I _will_. I killed you in Nibelheim, and I will do so again if I have to.”

Sephiroth only softly shook his head, an indulgent smile touching his lips. “Oh, you could _try_ , and I would _enjoy_ it, but you would not be able to kill me in the way you want. I would always come back.”

Cloud’s fingers tightened painfully on the hilt. “Explain.”

“What do you know about the lifestream?” Sephiroth asked, and Cloud answered honestly that it was very little.

Sephiroth hummed, seeming to think on this for a moment. Then he launched into his explanation of the workings of the planet, and of the Calamity; Jenova. The star that fell from the sky and left a deep scar on the planet’s surface that was now known as the North Crater. He talked about the Ancients, how Jenova was the virus that led to their near extinction. He talked about the scripture and how it was all true, and that the lifestream was the promised land mentioned therein. 

It was the kind of drivel that reminded Cloud entirely too much of Barret.

“You know what? You would probably get along well with someone I know,” he muttered underneath his breath.

Sephiroth just cocked his head at him, far too astute. “Do you really believe I’m just making this up?”

The thing was, Cloud didn’t. “No,” he said, softly. He ran his free hand through his hair next, feeling the familiar way his spikes sprang back into place. “But I don’t understand how this has _anything_ to do with your return.”

“Patience,” Sephiroth said, chuckling.

Cloud huffed. “Well, get on with it.”

Another chuckle, but Sephiroth did as he was told. “You should know that the planet is especially vulnerable to Mother because she is a foreign organism for which it has no defenses, and Mother was born to swallow planets and stars. All those she injects with her cells and takes over become her puppets. She is poison to the planet, and even when she fell into the lifestream with me it couldn’t dissolve her; neither could it dissolve me, inextricably linked as Mother and I were.”

The information made Cloud’s head spin. “So… you killed her. Doesn’t that mean you will be dissolved in the lifestream this time, if I kill you?”

“No,” Sephiroth said. “I killed her, but I also _absorbed_ her, therefore becoming the Calamity in her place.”

It was troubling information, one that presented Cloud with a new problem. But somehow through the course of the conversation that aspect had become less and less important.

The realization had been building ever since Sephiroth started explaining the workings of the world, of Jenova, and it was only now that the gravity of the words truly sank in. The full implications of them. It made something flutter in his chest, something tentative, fragile that he had long thought dead; something _dangerous_. 

“You said—” there his throat caught, making him struggle to speak for a moment. His heart pounded, his hand trembled, and he gave it a second try: “You said that all those Jenova infected became her puppets.” He couldn’t believe what he was saying, what he was _daring_ to suggest. It was a ludicrous, preposterous idea, and yet, and _yet_ —“And if she… if she's gone now, then—”

“You shouldn’t get your hopes up,” Sephiroth cut in, sounding almost bored. “That Sephiroth is _dead_.”

Cloud felt ice in his veins. The small, delicate thing in his chest was crushed at once, leaving him only feeling cold.

“What?” he asked, disorientated, confused.

He wasn’t even sure what he had wanted to say, or ask, exactly. The idea had only been vague, half-formed; a messy mix of thoughts that haunted him at night and kept him awake until the first rays of dawn penetrated the cracks of the Plate to illuminate the dusty undercity below. There was still a part of him that believed, that _wanted_ to believe, that the man he looked up to, his childhood hero, wasn’t the one who had burned down everything Cloud loved. That he was maybe a victim in all this, too. Just another casualty of Jenova; collateral damage. But that was a dangerous line of thought, one that always led to other kinds of speculations. It led to him wondering if he could have done anything different; if he should have paid more attention, or not left Sephiroth alone in that basement. It made him wonder if maybe then he could have saved him.

And now, now that tentative hope had bloomed again. Maybe Sephiroth had not been responsible for the burning of Nibelheim after all, and maybe... maybe Cloud could even _save_ him, could save the man who had played such a big role in Cloud’s life and influenced so many of his decisions—

But that possibility was ripped away from him before it could even fully form in his mind. It left him feeling strangely bereft.

“What do you mean he’s dead?” he asked, numbly. “What... happened to him?”

Sephiroth smiled, almost thoughtfully so, as he considered his response.

“He was... _weak_ ,” he finally said, with such pure disdain and _loathing_ in his voice that Cloud flinched as though it was _him_ Sephiroth was talking about. “When he saw Mother, his mind just gave and shattered. After all, he was just mortal and Mother was a _god_ , and there are just things mortals are never meant to lay eyes on. Once he was broken, it was easy for Mother to remake him in her image.”

By then Cloud’s trembling hand had already clenched into a fist, where it still continued shaking. He felt sick. _Beyond_ sick.

Hearing the confirmation of his darkest, most secret speculations was worse than he could have ever imagined, and for a moment he just stood there, trying to remember how to _breathe_.

“Mother carved everything away that she deemed unnecessary,” Sephiroth went on, with dark satisfaction. “She _destroyed_ it, and when she was done there wasn’t much left to return to the lifestream. That weak, pathetic _fool_ never went to the promised land or got to rejoin all the other souls that make up the planet’s memory.“

Each word was like another hit, and Cloud almost wanted to put his hands over Sephiroth’s mouth to make him stop. To make him stop talking about the brutal and comfortless demise of the man Cloud had once admired, and had never really stopped admiring. It was like he was experiencing the loss all over again—the burning of Nibelheim, all the hopes and dreams of a boy hanging on a bedroom wall in the form of large, glossy posters of an acclaimed war hero and general burning down along with it.

And for a moment he let overwhelming grief consume him; grief for a man who had been his comrade, and almost a friend, with whom he had worked together and fought together. An enigmatic man who he shared jokes with and even managed to make smile on the rare occasion—but in the end felt like he had never really known.

“You could say that I am… what’s left of him. Though I am _not_ him.” The mere notion seemed to disgust Sephiroth, and he continued, not seeming to notice Cloud’s turmoil; how crippling loss swept through him and scoured him out clean. “I am what the lifestream didn’t want and _spat out_ again.”

A dark smile curved his lips at this, his eyes promising a reckoning and making Cloud swallow. Down in his lap his thumb rubbed over the back of his other hand in an unconscious motion. It was a habit that Cloud recognized, from before.

And he had been wrong earlier in the alleyway; Sephiroth’s skin wasn’t unblemished. In all the time he had known Sephiroth he had never seen him without his gloves on, and now he knew why:

There was a stark black ‘ **1** ’ tattooed on the back of Sephiroth’s left hand, where it lay pale and soft in his lap now.

The number wasn’t very big, situated at the outer edge of his hand near the wrist, yet it seemed as out of place as the grimy alley earlier; the dark edge of Cloud’s sword against the white of Sephiroth’s skin.

It also... strangely reminded him of his neighbor Marco and that strange, black-robed man Aerith and Cloud had stumbled into in Sector Five. They had had numbers printed into their left shoulders too.

“So there it is,” Sephiroth said, spreading his hands carelessly, the motion taking the tattoo away from sight again as he smiled. “You can’t kill me. Isn’t that the very definition of a god—a _true_ god?”

Cloud merely scoffed. “There are many people who have to go on living, who can’t just die for various reasons even if they wanted to.” Like Cloud, who often wished that he had perished with Nibelheim that day. “That’s just the human condition.”

That seemed to startle a low, delighted laugh out of Sephiroth, who looked at Cloud with something bordering fondness. “The human condition, hm?” he echoed, though it was not quite the mockery Cloud thought it would be.

They let the words rest for a moment then, ringing out in the silence between them. After a while, Sephiroth’s pleasant, dark tenor resounded through the room again:

“Well… what will you do now that you know you can’t kill me? Of course you could still _try_ , but I’m afraid we would just end up at this point, over and over again—stuck in this same impasse.”

And Cloud—didn’t have an answer to that.

Sephiroth just watched him silently with his striking green eyes. But he seemed to realize that no answer was forthcoming anytime soon, and dropped his attention down to the blade that was yet held to his throat without touching it.

“I’ve been wondering… about how this sword always seems to wind up back in my life again. Last time you used it to attack me; this time you are pointing it at me to threaten me. But if the sword is in your possession now, that must mean…” There he trailed off, long lashes hiding the look in his eyes for a moment, but then he easily continued, as though he had never stopped, “I can see why you kept it though. It’s a special sword.” He smirked. “After all, you wounded me with it.”

Cloud’s brows pulled together, and he frowned. “Of course I kept it. It’s _mine_.”

The look in Sephiroth’s eyes was piercing, as though he was seeing right through Cloud, effortlessly stripping him layer by layer with his mere gaze.

“Hmm, of course,” was all he said.

It made Cloud want to grit his teeth. Then Sephiroth started moving, a noticeably, alarmingly larger motion than anything that had come before it, and all thoughts of the Buster Sword’s ownership fled him.

Sephiroth wasn’t just moving. He was _crawling_ towards him on the bed, hair spilling down the long, pale curve of his spine. He didn’t even seem to register the sword in his way which he had been talking about just now, and Cloud had to pull it back so as to not accidentally behead him. It was only his SOLDIER training that saved him from dropping the blade entirely in his shock. The small cut at Sephiroth’s neck had already closed, and the blood trickling down his front had dried, painting his skin with rust. He continued crawling towards him on his hands and knees, beautiful and naked, black wing unfurled from his right shoulder blade, silver hair sliding off his pale, bare shoulders.

He was like all of Cloud’s nightmares come alive.

“Stay back!” he said, even through the vice around his throat.

His mind was blank with terror. And he realized just how _powerless_ he was. Even if he wounded Sephiroth, he couldn’t kill him. He _could_ kill him, but then he would just come back, and then what? And then _what_?

Cloud would never be free of him.

The sheer hopelessness was like a giant’s fist crushing his lungs and all his organs.

Then Sephiroth was rising from the bed, pale, bare feet sliding over the floor.

He stood at his full height, a dark, merciless god. His body was perfect, sculpted, and he seemed even larger with the wing spread out behind him, filling out much of the room. He _loomed_ over Cloud, and Cloud knew then that the vulnerability or softness he had thought to glimpse while the other man was asleep had only been a mirage, melting away like mist before the light of day.

Cloud’s breath only grew shorter and shorter in his chest.

Sephiroth took a step forward, to which Cloud took a jerky one back, holding his sword up, the broad side acting as a shield; it was hard and thick steel—and yet it felt as thin as paper before Sephiroth.

“Don’t—don’t come any closer!” He tried for authoritative, but even he could hear the fear tingeing every syllable; every sharp, painfully loud breath in-between.

He lost more and more ground as the monster in front of him approached, slowly, steadily herding him through the room. Cloud tried to find a way out, but there was no escape. And then—after finally seeming to grow tired of playing with his prey—Sephiroth _pounced_.

Everything was pale skin and the blur of motion. Cloud’s slack fingers let go of his sword as his back collided hard with the floor, the impact pushing all the breath out of his lungs and jarring his teeth.

Then there was a large and heavy body pinning him down before he could scramble away, all toned muscles and the feline grace of a big cat. Sephiroth cocked his head and smiled down at him in satisfaction.

Powerful fear and despair seized Cloud’s chest, and all he could think was, _No_ —

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea for the tattoo on the back of Sephiroth's hand comes from raisedbymoogles and their wonderful story _On Broken Wings_ , which I highly recommend and you should check out if you haven't already! It's everything I never knew I wanted from a post-AC fic, and I'm absolutely in love with their soft, vulnerable and human Sephiroth. Again, many thanks for letting me play in your sandbox! :D


	4. Penumbra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud and Sephiroth get some company.

Long, silver hair curtained the both of them in a way that was deep and dark and _intimate_. Where the light managed to trickle in through the gaps, it was diffuse, illuminating the sheets of hair from behind and turning them almost translucent around the edges.

But the strands were too heavy and thick to let in any true light, and so the both of them were ensconced in penumbral darkness; in a space of their own where everything else beyond the luminous, silver curtain ceased to matter and exist.

As Cloud lay there—numb, paralyzed—he was only aware of his breathing, of both their breathing, mingling in the air between them; his own too quick, and the one above his deep and slow, seeming to almost make no noise at all.

Large hands framed Cloud’s head, too close to his throat for his liking, and he was starkly reminded of the vision he had, when he had checked on his neighbor but found Sephiroth instead, rising from the shadows like something out of a nightmare and stalking towards him in all his looming, beautiful, _terrifying_ grace. He remembered the way his own sword had caught on the doorframe as he tried to get away and stumbled, falling to the floor. The way Sephiroth had thrown himself on top of him, powerful thighs straddling his body as his two large hands wrapped around Cloud’s throat, squeezing the breath out of his lungs while those feline eyes narrowed and his lips peeled back from his teeth in a vicious smile of pleasure—

He had been pinning him down with his heavy weight just like now. The quiet panic in Cloud’s chest reached a fever pitch; his lungs constricted with the other man’s claustrophobic closeness, and he couldn’t breathe—he couldn’t _think_.

He only knew that he had to get out somehow, someway. _Now_.

He pressed his shoulder blades back against the floor, and bucked his hips with a strength he didn’t know he possessed.

He only heard a soft gasp, then the world was disorientating color and motion, and he found himself looking down at Sephiroth from above in a dizzying reversal of positions. For a moment he was overcome with the urge to wrap his own fingers around the man’s neck to give him a taste of what it felt like; to make him experience that same helplessness and _fear_.

He swallowed down the violent impulse, and merely dug his forearm into the other man’s throat to pin him down. It had to be painful, but Sephiroth made no indication that he even felt it, always mocking him with that equanimous smile of his.

“What do you want from me?” Cloud asked, still trembling from the adrenaline and fear.

Sephiroth looked up at him, shapely lips forming only one word in quiet reverence: 

“ _Reunion_.”

The velvety, dark caress of his voice made Cloud shiver, made goosebumps rise on his flesh. And the words from that other vision echoed in his ear, connected with the sense-memory of fingers around his wrist, telling him that _the Reunion was nothing to fear_ —

“You always say that word, but… what does it _mean_?”

There Sephiroth’s lashes fluttered, eyes falling closed in something that almost seemed like pleasure as he sighed.

“It means…” he started and halted, as though he had difficulty putting the experience into words, “being as close to a person as possible. Becoming _one_ with them.”

Cloud tried not to stare too closely, or pay too much attention to the way the other man’s expression or voice stirred something inside him. “Okay,” he said, for a lack of a better response, “but…”

He finally asked the question that had been plaguing him all along, but for which he never managed to find an answer that made any kind of _sense_ :

“Why _me_?”

It was a quiet, urgent whisper—far more open and vulnerable than intended, laying all of Cloud’s insecurities bare at once.

But he had always wondered, and he wanted the answer too much to care about what he unwittingly betrayed in the process.

Sephiroth looked at him with his feline eyes, hypnotizing him with the fervent intensity that illuminated them. “When Mother purified me, made me into a higher, godly being, she took _everything_ —but not you. _You_ alone shine brightly in the darkness she left behind.”

The revelation was… enormous, far beyond _anything_ that Cloud could have ever thought up, and for a moment he was rendered utterly speechless.

Sephiroth took the opportunity to lean up against the Cloud’s leather-covered forearm and bring them closer, _closer_. “Why fight this,” he whispered, seductively, “when it is so much easier to give in? You and I… we are meant to be, Cloud.”

Cloud shook his head to clear it of the disbelieving stupor he had fallen into. He pressed his arm harder into that long, pale neck. “I don’t think we are,” he said, roughly.

Sephiroth remained close for another moment, before gracefully acquiescing against the pressure and laying his head back down on the floor, though his eyes continued to smolder. “You are bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. Do you not feel the same desire to crawl into my skin and live there? I feel it, too.”

His words tickled something in the back of Cloud’s head—a memory of reading in a confidential file somewhere that SOLDIERs were injected with strange cells from an excavated specimen alongside their mako treatments.

“You said that Jenova could manipulate anyone with her cells. Are you manipulating me _right now_?” he asked angrily, animal fear making his lips pull back in a snarl.

“No,” Sephiroth said, in his cold, smooth baritone. “I told you: you are not my puppet, nor do I want you to be. Our minds may be connected, but your thoughts are still your own. As are your wants and desires.”

He waited a beat, before asking, “Do you want me, Cloud?”

Cloud looked down at him. From the way his hair was spread out around him almost like a halo, to the way he was surrounded by black feathers from the wing that lay underneath him, Sephiroth was achingly, _inhumanly_ beautiful.

Yet it was his lips that drew most of Cloud’s attention. They were usually curved as though the whole world amused him, but now they were merely slightly parted, making him remember Sephiroth’s quiet gasp of surprise when he flipped them over. His lips were a little too dark to be called rosy, almost bruise-colored—

They looked _so_ , so soft.

Cloud raised his arm, the one pinning Sephiroth down, carefully watching for any false movement. But Sephiroth remained absolutely motionless underneath him. _Good_ , Cloud thought, and placed his fingers on those full, inviting lips.

Sephiroth’s mouth fell open just a little more, his breath heating the pads of Cloud’s fingers through the soft leather.

He did not presume, did not take more than he was given. He only looked up at Cloud curiously; in silent, dark expectation.

It was true: Cloud did want to crawl into the man’s skin and wear it as his own. He wanted to tear him apart, make him bleed—make him _burn_ just like Nibelheim once had.

The bright, glimmering nebula of Sephiroth’s eyes beckoned to him, and he started leaning down—

That was when the door to the room burst open and hit the wall with a loud bang, making Cloud flinch and tense up.

His SOLDIER training immediately took over and he instinctively curled over the form underneath his to provide cover. He reached for the sword he had dropped earlier, hand curling around the hilt—

“So _that’s_ where you are! We’ve been looking for you _everywhere_.”

At the bright, bubbly voice he lowered his blade a fraction, tension leaving him all at once in silent shock. 

“Aerith?”

“The one and only!” She was smiling, stretching her blood-red lips. Her hair was a long, spiraling tumble of brown curls interwoven with ribbons and flowers down her back. She was clad in a sleek, flowing dress made of crimson velvet with a deep plunge in the front.

For a moment Cloud was startled, before remembering their original plan of infiltrating Don Corneo’s mansion and their deal with Madam M. It seemed that she had not lied about transforming Aerith into someone who might catch the Don’s eye.

He couldn’t really blame himself for his brief lapse; so much had happened since he left her at the parlor.

There was soft, shuffling motion behind Aerith, and he saw that it was—

_Tifa_.

First there was relief, powerful and sweeping over him like a wave, draining the tension out of him which he had not known he had been holding on to as he realized that Sephiroth hadn’t lied to him and she was alive.

Tifa was dressed in a black kimono, although Cloud doubted Wutaians actually wore it so short. She wore matching stockings and heeled boots. Silver hairpins and pink flowers decorated her head. Her lips were painted bold pink and the same shade accentuated her eyes, bringing out the red in her sepia irises.

It was unfamiliar, strange, seeing his childhood friend done up this way, though he had always known that she was beautiful.

However, that was the last thing on his mind right now. Cloud’s heart dropped to his stomach. He suddenly felt ill.

Tifa shot him a questioning glance which he didn’t dare to meet, ears burning.

What had he been _thinking_? This was the man who burned down Nibelheim, who had killed so many people without even a hint of remorse.

And Cloud had almost _kissed_ him.

He jumped away from the other man as though burned, ungracefully clambering to his feet in his haste. He could feel Sephiroth’s searing gaze on his skin, but he avoided it.

Shame burned a hole into his stomach, licked at his skin from the inside, hollowing him out.

From the corner of his eye he saw how Sephiroth also got to his feet, with far more grace than him. He shook his wing out, sending more feathers floating to the ground.

Aerith let out a gasp. “Is that a _wing_? Are you an angel?” 

She was hopping giddily on her bare feet. It seemed she had abandoned the heels and was holding them in her hand now, where they hung loosely from the tips of her painted fingers by the thin straps.

Sephiroth, for his part, eyed her with strange interest, something lurking in the depths of his gaze that set all of Cloud’s senses on edge.

It was then that the sheer _danger_ of the situation occurred to him. It had already been bad enough when he only had to worry about himself, but now Aerith and Tifa were here, too. Sephiroth had seemed disinterested in killing Cloud for now, but he had made no such assurances about them.

Cloud held his breath.

Sephiroth tilted his head, silver strands sliding over his glowing, reptilian eyes. “Perhaps.”

Then he smirked and stretched his wing out to its full length, until the tip touched the ceiling and it was spread out in all its dark glory.

Aerith clapped her hands in excitement. “Can I touch your wing? _Please_ tell me I can touch it!”

Sephiroth looked at her for a moment, his gaze unreadable, before smiling. “Go ahead,” he said, generously.

Cloud watched their interaction closely, hand gripped tightly around his sword. He waited for Sephiroth to drop the act and skewer Aerith, growing more and more tense with each second that passed and it didn’t happen. They were standing entirely too close to each other, Aerith’s expression bright and open as she softly carded her fingers through the thick plumage. She looked _tiny_ next to the monster of Cloud’s nightmares.

In contrast, Sephiroth watched Aerith merely with the cold amusement of a predator. It was like witnessing prey walk into the maw of the beast, oblivious of the sharp fangs closing in around it.

In fact, Aerith was not only oblivious, but she also appeared to be _ogling_ the very naked man in front of her. Did she have _no_ sense of self-preservation?

That was when Cloud saw the pair of bright green eyes avidly fixed on him, almost taunting. All the blood in Cloud’s veins turned into ice as he realized that Sephiroth knew. He _knew_ how scared Cloud was, how Aerith being so close within his reach made Cloud’s breath feel tight in his chest, made his fingers grow numb and shake with fear. He was going to _kill her_ —

“That’s quite enough.” Cloud stepped between them, heart pounding. He placed himself in front of Sephiroth, which also had the side-effect of covering his nude body with his own.

Aerith seemed startled for a moment, then she glanced between the two of them, sudden _understanding_ blooming across her features. The way she sent Cloud sly glances told him that she had arrived at the completely _wrong_ conclusion. It irritated him more than it should have, probably because she wasn’t really wrong at all.

Cloud raised his sword slightly, threateningly, as he turned his upper body to glare at Sephiroth. _Behave_. Sephiroth just smirked and didn’t say anything.

Cloud turned back around again, ignoring the warmth he felt at his back, the soft inhalations he could hear so loudly, so clearly, at his ear as though the other man had lowered his head slightly to breathe him in—subtly take in his _scent_.

He ignored the way it made him tremble with the desire to lean back into that alluring warmth, and just let _go_.

It was around this time that Tifa snapped out of her uncharacteristic silence by tugging at Aerith’s wrist and swiftly pushing her behind her back.

“He’s the man who burned down the village where Cloud and I grew up,” she explained to Aerith who looked at her in deep confusion, but Tifa’s brown eyes were already fixed with blazing intensity on the figure behind Cloud. “He’s _dangerous_.”

Her burning eyes turned to Cloud next, and although they gentled a little with inquisitive concern when they laid upon him, he still had to suppress his flinch.

“Cloud, what is going on? What is _he_ doing here?”

Cloud’s mouth suddenly felt dry. “I…”

However, Sephiroth’s smooth, deep timbre resonated from behind him before he could speak up.

“I seek no quarrel with you, Miss Lockhart. But if you decide to attack, I will be forced to retaliate. I say this only out of courtesy to Cloud, and I will say it only once: be warned.”

The dark promise in his voice chilled Cloud to the bone, but his words only seemed to incense Tifa even more as she lifted her arms in a familiar fighting stance, hands curling into fists, wide sleeves sliding down her pale, toned forearms.

“If you think your threats will stop me from taking revenge, then you are sorely _mistaken_. Cloud, move out of the way. I’m going to _kill_ him.” 

There was a soft, barely audible huff of laughter behind Cloud. “So I’ve been told,” Sephiroth drawled.

Tifa ground her teeth, pink lips slightly lifting from them, eyes glinting. “You—”

“No,” Cloud said, intervening before the situation could escalate any further. He shook his head apologetically when Tifa sent a confused and slightly betrayed look his way.

He understood her. He felt the _same_ way about it. But if a fight broke out, he was certain it would end badly for Tifa. She was strong, probably the strongest martial artist he knew, but he was not sure if even _he_ could take Sephiroth; if even _all three of them_ would be a match for him. The last time he had killed Sephiroth had been a fluke. He knew that.

“Cloud…” Tifa’s fists had lowered again, though her hands now anxiously hovered in front of her in the general area of the sash tied around her waist. “Why are you defending him?”

“It wasn’t me,” Sephiroth quietly spoke up again behind Cloud, making him startle and turn around to look at his expression. It was strangely soft, thoughtful. Then Sephiroth tilted his head, full lips curving up slightly at the corners. “In fact… Mother was the one responsible for the burning of your precious hometown, and I killed her, so shouldn’t you be _thanking_ me instead?”

At this, Tifa was positively _fuming_ again. She looked ready to come over and punch Sephiroth solidly in the solar plexus, and Cloud had to _put a stop to that at once_.

He placed himself firmly between Sephiroth and Tifa again, his body acting as a barrier.

“There was this alien specimen in the tank in the Nibel reactor named Jenova,” he started explaining, because Sephiroth obviously wasn’t going to do it. “It’s who he calls his... mother, and he claims that she… took over his mind. He may not have been fully in control of his actions.”

“And you _believe_ him?”

“ _No_. Maybe. I don’t _know_.” He ran a ragged hand through his hair. “Look, it’s… complicated. We can’t kill Sephiroth. Not permanently at least. Haven’t you wondered how he’s here despite having died?”

“Maybe he didn’t die…” But even Tifa looked doubtful about it.

“He did. I was there. I _saw_ it. He couldn’t have survived falling into the mako. The thing is… You know the lifestream Barret is always talking about?” At Tifa’s wary nod, he continued. “It’s real. And it won’t accept him because he sort of… _merged_ with Jenova.”

The skin around Tifa’s eyes tightened. “But isn’t it still better to kill him? It took him five years to return. At least then we’d have some time to figure out how to prevent it.”

Cloud was acutely aware of Sephiroth behind him, his breathing and the heat he wafted off. He felt his eyes burning the skin of his nape as he listened to every word, waiting for Cloud’s response.

“I’d rather… have him somewhere where I can see him, instead of having to constantly look over my shoulder because I don’t know how long it will take him the next time to come back.” Cloud heard light shuffling behind him, but he didn’t turn around to look.

Tifa seemed to deflate at this, lips pressing together for a moment. “But if he merged with Jenova… how do we know he’s the one in control, and not her?”

“We… don’t. But he hasn’t tried to kill any of us yet.” He deliberately left out Sephiroth’s recent bloodbath.

Tifa narrowed her eyes. She had always been too intelligent not to connect the dots. “He’s… the one responsible for the massacre in Don Corneo’s mansion, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Cloud confirmed, whisper-quiet.

“Cloud,” Tifa said, looking at him with such soft sympathy and _understanding_ even though he knew what she was going to say. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

Cloud let out a hollow laugh. “No, it really isn’t. But it’s the best one we have right now.”

Tifa looked at him with such bright concern in her warm brown eyes that Cloud wanted to turn away and hide from it like a child. He stood strong, and didn’t.

Aerith had been following the conversation with avid interest, and peering over Tifa’s shoulder now, she chimed in with, “Well, if it helps I don’t think your idea is _too_ bad!”

“Thanks, Aerith,” was Cloud’s dry response.

She just beamed brightly at him.Then she stepped out from behind Tifa, looking shrewdly from face to face. She even tried to crane her neck to get a peek behind Cloud. Simply _unbelievable_. He just huffed, crossing his arms as he made sure his body covered Sephiroth’s naked form fully—or at least most of what was below the neck.

Aerith just pouted and grinned at him unapologetically. “ _So_ ,” she said, pulling everyone’s attention to her. “Does that mean we’ll be working together for now? We still need to find Don Corneo after all! Right, Tifa?”

The question effortlessly pulled Tifa out of her worries and anxious thoughts that were plainly written on her face. She seemed to blink out of it, before shaking her head in soft chagrin. “You are right. We have to find him, but we don’t even know where to start...”

Cloud frowned. “I’ve been wondering… What business do you have with Corneo anyway that you went to all the trouble of entering his audition just to meet him?” 

This seemed to startle Tifa a little. “Right. I haven’t told you about that yet. Apparently Corneo’s goons went snooping around in the Sector Seven slums to ask for a man with a gun-arm…”

“Barret,” Cloud said, lips pressing together. “He’s digging around for Avalanche.” Then he glanced at her again. “And you want to find out why?”

Tifa nodded. Cloud’s frown deepened. Surely, it couldn’t be anything good. But what could Corneo possibly want from an eco-terrorist group?

There was a deep, silken chuckle behind Cloud, and they all looked at Sephiroth who was smiling at them in cold amusement.

“Avalanche again… I’m surprised that Shinra hasn’t managed to get rid of you yet, though I suppose it’s hard to stamp out cockroaches.”

Tifa’s eyes darkened again, and Cloud felt his headache returning with a vengeance. He held his gloved hand up to his childhood friend, both as a halting as well as a reconciliatory motion, then he looked at the other man sternly. “Sephiroth…”

Said man only smiled a little wider, framed by the soft silver slide of his hair. “Of course,” he amended, mockingly. “I already saw and followed some of what you did through Cloud’s eyes. It’s curious for him to have ended up in your group of all people... Such a small world, isn’t it?”

For a moment, Cloud forgot to breathe. What _else_ had Sephiroth seen?

Then Sephiroth turned his lethal eyes on him, and all thoughts left Cloud at once.

“Don’t you worry…” Sephiroth stepped closer. His warm fingers around Cloud’s chin were a shock as he leaned down, murmuring, “As you dreamed of me, I dreamed of _you_ , my chosen prophet.”

All Cloud could do for a moment was tremble under his dark, velvety whisper. Then he tore himself away, both from Sephiroth’s grip and from his hypnotic gaze.

“Don’t touch me,” he snarled, hands clenched into shaking fists, the hilt of his sword still gripped in his right one, which he consciously refrained from raising. “And I thought I _told_ you to stay out of my head.”

Sephiroth just hummed and looked at him contemplatively. “That will be hard to avoid, considering how deeply connected our bodies and minds are.”

“ _Try_ ,” Cloud ground out.

“Cloud?” It was Tifa who spoke up. “What is he talking about?”

She looked at him with deep concern in her sepia eyes. _Great_. Cloud just shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

Tifa looked unconvinced, but instead of saying anything she just pressed her lips into a thin line. She continued to look between Cloud and Sephiroth with deep unease and suspicion. Cloud thought she was going to say something then, dreaded and braced himself for it, but she just abruptly turned her attention to Sephiroth and addressed him brusquely:

“Well, are you willing to lower yourself and work together with these ‘cockroaches’? If not, you might as well leave now.”

The words were all cold business, even as anger burned in her eyes.

All three of them turned to Sephiroth as they awaited his response. He seemed quiet, thoughtful. “I’ve been meaning to leave Shinra anyway...” 

His words triggered a hazy memory from Cloud, of another time when Sephiroth had said something similar—

_Depending on what happens… I may abandon Shinra_. The sweep of lashes over pale cheeks as he closed his eyes, the shocking bright green of them next when they opened and pierced Cloud. _Until then, I’ll remain loyal to SOLDIER_ —

Cloud shook the memory and the fuzzy static away, returning to the hotel room, where the present Sephiroth’s lips curled into a slow smile.

“What better way to leave it than to work together with the group of terrorists I once fought?” 

“Great!” Aerith said, brightly. “Then me and Tifa should get changed, so we can get going as soon as possible.”

She turned lightly on her bare heel and picked up the red sack Tifa had put down at the entrance earlier when they had entered the room. She held it up victoriously, grinning. “You know, Leslie was kind enough to bring it to us. We were really lucky to run into him shortly before we found you. As nice as this dress is, it would be a shame to fight in it, get it dirty, or even _worse_ , ripping it up! Especially after all the trouble we went through to get it!”

Cloud’s brows drew together. “Who…?”

“You don’t remember? It’s Corneo’s henchman with the silver hair and the cap we met before who was guarding the doors to the mansion.”

Of course Cloud remembered him. Silver hair was so rare, and it never failed to remind him of Sephiroth. “But why did he help you?”

Aerith shrugged. “Beats me. Andrea seemed to have sent him though—oh right, I nearly forgot! I was supposed to pass on a message from him to you. He said that it’s a pity he didn’t get to meet the brave, young, _handsome_ hero of the Colosseum, but maybe you can drop by the Honey Bee Inn the next time?”

Cloud wasn’t sure what to make of the man’s interest, but everything—the hand massage in Madam M’s parlor, the Colosseum, the attempts to smuggle themselves into Corneo’s audition—had just been a means to an end. He wasn’t here to relax and have fun, or whatever else the man had in mind. “Not likely to happen.”

“Are you sure? When we went looking for you at the inn, he seemed like such a sweet guy. He was so _heartbroken_ he didn’t get to meet you!” At Cloud’s withering glare, she pouted. “Fine, fine. I would have loved to see you in makeup and a dress though! I’m sure you would have looked _adorable_.” There she held a hand to her very red lips and giggled.

Cloud just grumbled, and was quick to change the topic when he noticed Sephiroth looking far too intrigued by the turn their conversation had taken.

“I thought you wanted to get changed. Well, hurry it up then. Corneo isn’t going to catch himself.”

“Alright, alright.” She sighed, appearing to have given up, but when she passed by him, she leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “I’m sure you would have looked cute in pigtails!” Before Cloud could respond, she had already hurried into the bathroom after Tifa. “And _braids_!” she added, just before the door closed behind her.

Into the heavy silence she left, Cloud glared at Sephiroth and said, “Not a damn word.” 

Sephiroth just looked at him innocently.

Cloud had already put his sword back into its holster on his back again. A frown tugged at his lips. “We need to get you some clothes from somewhere…”

“No need,” Sephiroth reassured him. Before Cloud could ask him what he meant, he stretched his wing out purposefully, majestically, until every spine was unfurled to its full length. Then he _retracted_ it. It was just as violent as the release, the appendage rapidly refolding and compressing and pulling back into his body without leaving a single trace. Sephiroth noticed his fascinated gaze and turned obligingly to give Cloud a better view of his back. And indeed: there was only unblemished skin on the pale, corded muscle of his right shoulder blade.

It didn’t make any _sense_. There surely wasn’t enough space in Sephiroth’s body, and yet it had sucked the wing in like it was nothing. There was no bulge or slight elevation on his back to indicate it was even _there_ , just resting underneath his skin, ready to burst out at any moment.

Only the black feathers that yet hung in suspension in the air or had already fallen to the ground remained there as proof of the fact that Cloud hadn’t just hallucinated the whole thing.

That was when he noticed the wisps of black at Sephiroth’s fingertips, which started to climb up his wrists and spread from there. It looked like pure, solidified darkness come alive, heeding the call of its master as it curled loving tendrils around his limbs in a possessive caress. They were _clothes_ , Cloud realized, knitting together bit by bit, each layer forming at once, beginning from Sephiroth’s hands and feet. He saw how leather and metal and fabric came into existence, wrapping sensually up long, pale legs, hugging around that powerful upper body and those strong, broad shoulders.

Sephiroth was already walking before the last details had finished materializing, completing his signature outfit as Shinra's famous general. He stood there in his full glory, in his high-waisted trousers and his heavy boots, in his long, characteristic coat with its folded collar at the neck, with its zippers and buckles, the largest being the one on his belt, cinching the open flaps of his coat around that narrow waist. Other silver accents were the large matte pauldrons on his shoulders, the metal bracers around his wrists, and the two thin stripes that ran around the top of his boots, just above the knee.

He tugged on his gloves to make sure they were pulled tight, folding and unfolding his fingers, drawing Cloud’s eyes there and also to the bare, muscular chest behind the hands, which was only minimally covered by the suspenders criss-crossing over it. Somehow it was more obscene than when he had been naked.

Sephiroth also looked undeniably more intimidating this way. The last time Cloud had seen him in this outfit had been in Nibelheim. It was also what he wore in all the magazines and posters Cloud had collected religiously, and which had acted as incentive for young boys and girls to join SOLDIER and the war efforts in Wutai, all of them dreaming and aspiring to become a great hero just like him, hungry to attain both glory and fame on the battlefield.

Cloud had been one of them, just a young country boy with big dreams of becoming a SOLDIER; becoming like the Great General Sephiroth, Hero of Wutai.

Now that dream was ashes, and the man standing in front of him was just a monster in disguise, wearing the skin of something that had once been great.

Cloud shook himself out of his somber introspection.

He saw that Tifa and Aerith had walked out of the bathroom by then to catch the last bits of the clothes materializing out of thin air and covering Sephiroth’s body. Tifa looked wary and a little uneasy, whereas Aerith stared at Sephiroth with open curiosity.

“Now that you are dressed, I guess it’s time for introductions!” She thrust her hand forward. “I’m Aerith Gainsborough, but you can just call me Aerith.” She tilted her head and smiled sunnily up at Sephiroth.

Cloud resisted the urge to sigh. It was clear she hadn’t listened to any of Tifa’s or Cloud’s warnings about the man being dangerous. But she could be stubborn, and once she had set her mind on something, it was very hard to convince her otherwise. Although their acquaintance had only been short, he had already learned that early on, so he didn’t even try.

Sephiroth blinked and looked down curiously at her outstretched hand, before wrapping his own much larger, gloved one around it. “Sephiroth,” he said, in his pleasant baritone.

“I know! You are the war hero, right? You were constantly in the news up to a few years ago, so I recognized you at once!”

Sephiroth just inclined his head, smiling. “Is that so?”

As they continued their bizarre small talk, Cloud puzzled over why Sephiroth hadn’t conjured his clothes earlier. But then he remembered the way the other man had revelled in his own nudity like a god, and thought nothing more of it.

Still, as much as the casual display of magic awed him, it was also… troubling. Cloud didn’t know any kind of materia that could do that— _if_ Sephiroth had even used any materia at all.

And if he hadn’t, then… 

There was the chilling and very likely possibility that he had become even _more_ powerful and harder to kill. 

And that was even without counting in his wing, the fact that he couldn’t truly die, or that he had apparently absorbed an extraterrestrial horror that was capable of wounding and becoming a serious threat for the planet...

Cloud had to suppress his violent shudder when Sephiroth’s eyes chose that moment to alight on him, as though privy to his thoughts; which… he probably _was_. Cloud still wasn’t sure how to deal with the fact that their minds were somehow tied together in some way, with Sephiroth clearly having far more control over it than him.

“Let’s go,” he said, ignoring the bright green eyes that were still fixed on him with unsettling intensity. And though he didn’t look at the other man, he still caught how those sensual lips curved into a slow smile in the periphery of his vision.

“After you,” that dark, smooth voice purred.

Somehow, it sounded like a promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked Sephiroth’s magical girl transformation!


End file.
